Bharti Infra to take annual hit of Rs 780 cr from Vodafone Idea exit

Telecom infrastructure firm Bharti Infratel said Wednesday its consolidated revenue, including that from Indus Towers, is expected to take around Rs 780 crore hit on annual basis, due to exit of Vodafone and Idea Cellular from co-located mobile towers.

Following completion of Vodafone-Idea merger, the companies have served exit notices to Bharti Infratel and its subsidiary Indus Towers from 27,447 co-located mobile towers on consolidated basis.

"The aforesaid co-locations contribute to 13.7 per cent of the total co-locations basis as on June 30, 2018. This is likely to result in a net reduction of consolidated service revenue of approximately Rs 60-65 crores per month with effect from September 1, 2018," Bharti Infratel said in a regulatory filing.

It added that the adverse impact on revenue will be mitigated by exit charges and incremental revenues on account of anticipated new network rollouts by the operators going forward.

Bharti Infratel and Vodafone own around 42 per cent stake each in Indus Towers and rest of the stake is held by Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular.

Vodafone and Idea have merged their mobile businesses and now they are in process of consolidating assets to trim operational and capital expenses.